Chapter VII
Stepping back into the lab, Sara moved about the various smaller labs, dropping off evidence. It was well into day shift and the day shift lab techs were moving through their own backlog and working on evidence given to them by day shift CSIs. Sighing, Sara knew that it would be some time before she got any results of her own.
Her jacket wet, Sara headed for the locker room. She opened her locker and removed her jacket, hanging it next to her travel cloths. She sat and watched as the cuffs on her jacket's sleeves dripped slowly onto the floor of the locker. Her eyes moved to the photos of Grissom and she stared at them, sighing. Her shoulders fell and her lips pressed together. Her fingers began playing with her wedding band, twisting it on her finger. Her thumb rubbed over it. She should call him, she knew. She'd wanted to speak to him, to hear his voice answer hers for so many hours now. She hated that the only words she'd heard him speak in those hours had been strained words spoken quietly into voicemail. She wished she could take back their last several minutes together. Not the argument. No, they'd needed to have the argument. She'd wished they'd resolved something though, but she still wouldn't have taken back the argument. No, she wished she could take back their goodbye, the quietly restrained farewell, the tentative, uncertain question asking her to call, her equally soft nod that she would. She wished they'd said goodbye as they should have, a tender kiss, only love and not sadness in both their eyes. She'd wished they hadn't had to say goodbye at all. She wished she's been with him, and hadn't had to live those irrational moments of fear when she'd heard a cafe in Europe had been blown up and Grissom hadn't called. She'd wished for those few moments of their parting back just so that if something had happened to either of them, he would know, would never doubt, just how much she loved him.
The long distance had created doubts. He'd taken that extra semester in Paris, his choice; she'd extended her stay in Las Vegas, her choice. It felt as though they were living three lives, his life in Paris without her, her life in Vegas without him, and the third life, the distant third, but really, most important, that shortened life they were living together, when they managed to be in the same place at the same time. Why was that the shortest of their lives? Why was their time together so fleeting? Why did she have to hear his name spoken to her so often, to remind her of this, of his being in Paris, of her being here, of two lives entwined, but only occasionally meeting?
Sara let out a breath and pulled out her phone. She pressed down the button to dial, when Catherine walked it. Quickly, Sara shut her phone.
"Hey Sara, you heading out for the day?"
Sara looked up at her supervisor. "Uh, no, not just yet. There are a few things I want to check on first."
Catherine opened her locker, and leaned in. "It's a good thing you take all of that time off to visit your husband, or I'd be seriously worried about the amount of overtime you put in."
Sara sighed. There was that reminder again. "Yeah," she responded quietly. She placed her phone back into her pocket. She could feel Catherine's eyes on her, appraising. She looked up and gave a weak smile. Her smile grew a little when she found Catherine holding a paper Starbucks bag, the bag the muffins Vartann had bought had been in. "You done for the day?"
It was Catherine's turn to sigh. "No, I wish. Just grabbing my jacket to meet Vega over at PD." Catherine took her jacket and closed her locker. "Well, don't work too long. You've got to be tired after a long flight and working," Catherine checked her watch, "Thirteen hours now? Go and get some rest, so you can return to work fresh."
She'd wanted to work through, had readied herself for a triple, but she was so tired. "Yeah, okay. There are only a couple of things I want to do anyways." She stood and pulled a lab coat out of her locker, pulling it on. "Later, Cath."
"Bye, Sara." She followed Catherine from the locker room.
Peeking into the AV lab, Sara was surprised to find it empty. She was tempted to watch the video surveillance footage herself, but she was too tired to sit and watch a screen. She didn't know how many hours she'd been up now, only that she's barely gotten any sleep on the plane ride over, an hour maybe over the Atlantic, and none after she transferred flights in New York. The video surveillance would have to wait for shift that night.
She still didn't want to go to the condo yet, though, so Sara logged out the bloody sweatshirt and all of the pairs of footwear she collected, carrying the items over to an empty layout room. She laid the shirt out on the table and began to inspect it, hoping to find some hairs or saliva or other trace upon it. She examined it closely, finding a few shed hairs, but none that had a follicular tag upon them. Hoping they could try to use a polymerase chain reaction to try and extract any trace amounts of DNA, Sara lifted the hairs and put them aside for DNA.
Slowly, she began lifting all of the other trace from the sweatshirt, her gloved hands patting clear tape over the cotton/polyester blend. Her fingers went over every inch of the sweatshirt, lifting every piece of trace from the fabric. Placing the tape lifts aside, Sara's eyes moved over the shirt. There was a small saliva stain within the smears of blood on the back of the sweatshirt. She swabbed it for DNA and set it aside.
Sara hung the shirt on the wall, studying it. She took photos of the blood spatter on the shirt and began to measure the area where the blood spatter had landed. She pulled the shirt from the wall and placed it back onto the table. Carefully, she began taking samples of the blood spatter on the shirt, wanting to get it to DNA for a comparison. Samples taken, she pushed the shirt aside.
The various pieces of footwear came next. She pulled out a laptop and brought up the bloody shoes impressions she had lifted. Beginning with the paramedics' boots, she was able to match their treads, one size ten, one size twelve, to the boot treads leading back and forth to and from the ambulance.
Next, she pulled out the loafers, size ten and a half, that she'd taken off of Drew Bray's feet. She looked at the tread on the bottom and had difficulty comparing it to the other treads found at the scene. The bloody treads leading to and from the store and to the place Drew Bray had been found sitting looked almost waffled and had no clear impression. They were size ten and a half though, had a broad heel, and could have easily been made by a loafer. Drew Bray's loafer had a large crisscross pattern that could, she surmised, make a waffle like impression if covered in enough blood.
Deciding the best impressions to compare to would be the ones leading back from the store after most of the blood would have disappeared from the tread, Sara pulled up a new screen. From the sets of shoe prints leading back to the body, Sara pulled up the clearest tread and began to compare. The gap between the tread on Drew Bray's loafer and on the shoe print closed. They looked more similar, though it was still not conclusively the same tread. She'd have to get someone to run in a pair identical ink soaked loafers to be sure. She looked at the make and model. She'd call Vartann and ask him to hunt down an identical pair before next shift.
The last shoe treads from the scene came from a sneaker, also size ten and a half. They disappeared and faded into nothing in the alley. She scanned the tread through the SoleMate database. Waiting, Sara put away all the other evidence, sealing it back into boxes. She stacked the boxes and leaned against the table, her eyes closing with fatigue. Minutes later the computer let out a soft ding and she looked up. The database came out with a New Balance 623 men's cross trainer as the best match. She closed her eyes. They had the shoe. They just needed DNA, trace, prints and AV to come up with something if they hoped to find something.
Sara logged the evidence back in and headed to the locker room. Just as she entered, her phone began to vibrate. Her fingers dove into her pocket, pulling the out the phone. She didn't even check the call display before opening. "Sidle."
"Sara,"
Sara let out a long sigh. Finally. "Gil."
"Hi."
"Hey."
"I'm…uh, off to bed, so I thought…"
"Yeah. Thanks. I was just heading out here. I was going to call you soon." She looked around, seeing no one, and then sat down on the bench, her head dropping forward. She faced away from the door. Her free hand ran through her mess of hair. She thought back to the morning, to calling and getting no answer, to his not calling back for sometime later. "You weren't available earlier."
"I know. I'm sorry." He paused. "Look…"
"It's okay. I…I can't really do this here."
"Yeah, I know." He paused. She hated the quiet of his voice. She bit her lip, not knowing what to say.
"You weren't available earlier, either."
She nodded quickly despite his not being able to see her. He'd tried calling several times as well. "I know. Gil..."
"So your flight was alright?"
"Yeah…" She could feel tears in her eyes. "Yeah, it was okay."
"Good."
Sara sighed. The conversation was painful. She didn't know what else to say. There was such a disconnect. "Well, I better let you get to bed. I'm going to head home and do the same thing."
It was silent on the other end of the line. Sara closed her eyes. She leaned forward more, resting her elbow on her knee and her forehead on her elbow. "I'll call you later, okay?"
"Yeah, okay."
"Gil?"
"Yeah?"
"I love you."
There was a short pause. "I love you too."
"Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Sara."
She closed her phone and set it down on the bench. Her hand joined the other, elbow on knee, hand cradling forehead.
"Hey."
Sara looked up to see Greg leaning in the doorway. She forced a smile. "Hey, you're back."
"Yeah, you were right about the monorail cars. They were just cleaned. So were all of the stations."
"Well, there goes that." She sighed.
Greg stepped inside the locker room. "You alright?"
She nodded half-heartedly. "Yeah, I'm okay."
"You sure?"
She nodded.
"Because it kind of sounds like those six thousand miles are getting a little further."
Sara sat up. She sighed. "It's just hard, you know?"
Greg came in and sat down next to her. "Hard leaving him, coming here?"
"Yeah, that and…"
"What?"
"Never mind."
"What, Sara? What happened? You were just there. You shouldn't be feeling the strain already."
"Greg…"
"Sara, I know you don't like opening up and I know it isn't any of my business, but I can't stand seeing you like this. If you need a friend, I'm here."
Sara sighed. She hated revealing anything, but everything felt like it was becoming too much, and she knew what it cost to hold it all in. She sighed again. "We had a fight before I left."
Greg nodded. "Okay, left on bad terms. What was it about?"
She shot him a look, but Greg only held up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "So you had a fight, but you won't tell me what it was about. Was it about your leaving?"
"No," Sara shook her head. "Well sort of. I started it."
"Okay." Greg paused. She could tell he was debating what to say next. "Why?"
She looked at him and then turned away.
"Hey, you picked the fight. So, why'd you pick it?"
Sara played with her fingers, squeezing each one with the index finger and thumb of her other hand. She sighed. "Her name is Isabelle Langois…"
Greg's face shot to hers. "Wait, Sara, did Grissom?"
"No," she interjected quickly, her voice raised. Her voice quieted. "No, and he wouldn't, ever, okay? It's not that."
Greg looked skeptical. She looked at him, catching his eyes. "It's not."
"Who are you trying to convince here, Sara?"
"Greg, it's really not. He wouldn't. It's not that."
"Are you sure?"
"It's not. I promise, it's not, okay?"
"Okay."
"He wouldn't, Greg."
"I know."
"Grissom takes his vows very seriously, Greg. So do I. He wouldn't."
"I know."
Sara cocked her head. She raised an eyebrow in challenge. Greg raised his hands in surrender again. "I know, Sara. It's Grissom. He is a master of self control. Even if he was ever tempted," Sara winced as Greg's words as he continued, "if anyone is good at repressing anything, it's him."
She looked at him, studying him. "Okay."
"So, who is this Isabelle Langois?"
Sara let out a breath. "Dr. Langois. She's a professor of microbiology at the Sorbonne. She's stunningly beautiful, intelligent, sharp, persuasive, well respected, and has no respect for the institution of marriage. She's got her eye on him."
"Sara..."
"Greg, it's not…just let me finish okay." It was taking enough out of her to get it out without his interrupting her with his groundless speculations. She took a deep breath and continued. "Whenever I'm around, she feels it in herself to scoff at me before him; calls me "une américaine typique," or says something in a derisive tone, in English, for us only, like 'Doctor Greesomme, your wife, she leaves you a lot, no? You must be very alone,' or in French, for everybody to hear, 'Oh, Harvard, oui, j'en ai entendu parler. C'est une bonne école'." Sara let out a small laugh. "He went to UCLA and the University of Chicago, which are both excellent schools, don't get me wrong, but he's so well respected, and deservedly so, that it doesn't matter what institution he attended or didn't attend, and he'd never be called 'un américain typique'. She just says those things to make it seem like I'm some sort of peasant. She and Grissom have their phD's and I only have a masters..."
"You commoner."
"I know. She treats me as though I'm unworthy of him, or perhaps only worthy enough to make an adequate wife. An intelligent man, she believes, should have an adequate wife and a far more compatible and exciting mistress. She'd like to be la maîtresse. She would like nothing more than to warm his bed when I'm away."
"But if she's not a threat?"
"She isn't. Sure she tries to monopolize his time, constantly makes subtle offers and asks for consultations that a doctor of her field does not need, but I know, I know, she is not any threat my marriage to Grissom. It's not even her. Over there, I'm just the wife. I visit and I'm treated like the wife, and she is, of course, the one doing most of the reminding. I was upset about our situation and I told him he'd probably be happier with someone like her, which he refused to discuss, of course. I told him just to admit that he's conflicted, which he also won't discuss. I just wanted to pick a fight, and I wanted to hurt him, which I did, and I used her, so you know, it's really not her. It's just that…"
"What?"
"It's like the time we spend together doesn't make up for the time we're apart. He's got this whole other life there and I have this whole other life here, and they're interfering with our life together, or our life together is interfering with our other lives. I don't know."
"What are you saying?"
"I don't know. I know I'm tired of traveling, of rarely seeing him. Sometimes I feel like I'm holding him back, like he could be happy in his life there if it weren't for me, like he could be happier without me. I'm afraid he really is conflicted. What if he is, Greg?"
Greg slid closer and took her hand. "No, no way. He loves you, Sara."
She nodded, ignoring his about turn. "I know." She paused. "He said long distance isn't working."
"What?"
"That's what he said during the fight. He said that I didn't want to admit the real problem, which is that long distance is not working. And it's true. It just keeps getting harder. Right now, it feels like it's not working."
"That doesn't mean marriage isn't working."
"I know, but he's committed to another semester over there and I've committed to helping you guys over here. This was supposed to be temporary, but temporary keeps dragging on. It's like we're at an impasse. I've loved him for so many years and we still can't get it together."
Greg nodded in understanding. He let out a breath. "Well, you're trying. I don't think I can say the same thing about him."
Sara pulled her hand from Greg's. "Don't, Greg. Don't do that."
"Sara, you visit him all of the time. Maybe he should come back here for once."
Sara stood, facing him. "I said, 'don't,' Greg. I know it's awfully convenient, isn't it? 'Blame Grissom.' He's allowed to feel the things he does, make the decisions he does, choose the way he does regardless of how everybody else feels and yet everybody always blames him when they don't agree. He has his reasons, and it doesn't matter what you think of them, okay?"
"Okay."
"He has come back here," she admitted quietly.
"He has?"
"Well, we met in California last summer. He spent a couple of days here too, but we didn't tell anyone."
"He had all of that time off last summer and he only spent a couple of days here."
"Greg!"
He looked up at her from the bench. "Sorry."
"He didn't have 'all of that time off.' He taught a seminar, worked on our applications for our research grants and prepared for another semester at the Sorbonne, and I didn't want to spend the days that he was here in Vegas where I could get called into work, and he didn't want that time spent with me interrupted by everyone else at the time, so I'm sorry if you didn't know he was here, but he'd said that next time he comes, he plans on letting everybody else know."
"Alright." Greg gave her a puppy dog smile. "I'm sorry?"
"So am I." Sara waved her hands about. "Anyways, thanks for listening."
Greg nodded. He stood up. "So, do you want to grab lunch?"
Sara shook her head. "No, I'm going back to the condo and crawling into bed. I'll catch you later."
Greg nodded. "Yeah. See you at shift."
